Jess Kelly is an award-winning journalist and filmmaker who has dedicated much of her career to making investigative documentaries in the Middle East. In 2021 she was nominated for a BAFTA for “The Schools That Chain Boys” and “Silicon Valley’s Online Slave Market.” She has won two Royal Television Society Awards.

From the frontline of climate change in Iraq, Jess’ latest film, “Under Poisoned Skies” (BBC Arabic, 2022) reveals the deadly impact of the oil giant’s toxic air pollution on children and the planet. It won an RTS award, a One World Media award, a DIG award and an AIB award. It was also nominated for an Amnesty award and a Media Freedom Award. It was screened six times at COP27 in Egypt, including by the World Health Organisation. It was also screened at the UN Forum on Business and Human Rights. After, the film’s main character, Ali Hussein Juloud, died of leukaemia a few months after the film came out, his father confronted BP’s CEO Bernard Looney at the company’s AGM in a rare moment of accountability, which was featured on the BBC News at Ten.

“The Schools That Chain Boys” (BBC Arabic, 2020) uncovers systemic child abuse inside Islamic schools in Sudan, with boys as young as five years old routinely shackled, beaten and sexually abused by the sheikhs in charge. The investigation won a Royal Television Society award, an Amnesty award and the ARIJ gold award. It received a special commendation at the Grierson awards and was nominated for a Peabody award. The film’s first-time reporter, Fateh Alrahman Alhamdani, won the One World Media New Voice Award.

Jess’s 2019 BBC film, “Silicon Valley’s Online Slave Market”, investigates the illegal trade of domestic workers via apps, such as Facebook and Instagram, and follows the story of a 16-year-old girl from Guinea who was being sold into slavery in Kuwait. The film has been watched by over 5 million people. It was screened at the United Nations and in British Parliament and was nominated for a Broadcast Award.

In 2018 Jess directed “Palestine Underground”, an immersive music documentary following an underground network of DJs and producers in Ramallah, Jaffa and Haifa, battling apartheid and occupation. Commissioned by the music broadcasting platform Boiler Room, it was screened in festivals and club events around the world.

Jess has made several documentaries for BBC Three, including “Inside the Real Saudi Arabia: Why I Had to Leave” (2019) and “Stacey Dooley: Migrant Kids in Crisis” (2016). Jess directed four episodes of Channel 4’s critically acclaimed current affairs series Unreported World, exploring topics as diverse as the resurgence of the Orthodox Church in Russia and environmental disaster in Borneo. Jess also directed four episodes of Viceland’s flagship series “States of Undress”.

Jess graduated from the University of Oxford with a degree in Arabic and Islamic Studies. She has been a guest lecturer at University College London’s documentary master’s program and a mentor for the One World Media Fellowship.